Word from the road

Well, I am roaming around North Carolina. Been visiting family, old friends, and making new friends. Me and Freak played guitar until our fingers were bleeding and I sang until my voice stopped working. It felt so good.

I miss my girl. I know I've only been gone for a few days...but it feels like its been a decade already.

I'll do a better update as soon as I can...just wanted to stop by and say hi to all the bloggers in blog-land.

I leave with this conversation between me and my cousin that I haven't seen in like ten years or something.

Hobbit: I wanted a hug.
Jane: So, do you remember her now?
Me: Yeah, I used to change your diapers.
Hobbit: (He turns to Jane) She's seen my pee pee.

Kidnapping me

In an earlier post, I wrote about how my cousin Jane was plotting to kidnap me. Well, its official. Jane, Freak, and Writer will be kidnapping me Friday. As far as I know, I will be gone for one week.

Although I'm looking forward to the change in scenery and people, I'm dreading how much I'm going to miss J. This will be the first time in five years that we have been apart for more than a day. Not to mention, I will be in an entirely different state which seems to be making it that much harder.

She's dreading it too. Every ten minutes or so she says, "Please be safe up there" or "I'm gonna miss you." And then there is the "Don't do anything crazy" and "Please don't go get wasted and do something silly." She knows me too well. So I've made promises. No jumping off buildings or cliffs. No driving too fast. No getting wasted (actually, this one is a promise to myself. I haven't been wasted since November of last year.) No staying awake for days. It pretty much all goes back to the "please be safe" and "don't do anything crazy."

There is an upside to this trip. I might get the chance to audition the new drummer. I will be able to sit and have a music writing session or two with Freak (one of the most amazing guitar players I've ever met). And I'll get to see some family.

I am looking forward to the trip but still...

Its funny and I'm not crazy, I swear but I've been talking to the dogs (Aspen and Brody) all day like they are human and they understand, telling them that they have to protect J while I'm gone. Honestly, I think Brody is going to miss me as much as J. But Aspen will be more than happy that I'm away because that means she'll be able to sleep on the bed.

Countdown...a little over twenty four hours...the truth...I'm already starting to miss her...
Tonight...I'm not letting her go.

A kidnapping in creation

My lovely cousin, Jane, graced my ears with her soothing voice last night. Lately, I have been feeling kind of awkward and out of place, so to speak. Kind of stagnant and such. And North Georgia just hasn't quite felt like home to me yet.
I still can't seem to find my groove. Adjusting isn't as easy as I expected. I have no idea how I lived up here for two years before.

Back to Jane.
I had left her a message on myspace to call me. Like the loyal cousin she is, she called late last night. My day was shit and just the sound of her voice lifted that dark cloud in an instant. She had me laughing in no time. Well, I had left her specific instructions on what her call was to be about. I think I'm in desperate need of one of those "I'm laughing so hard my ribs are hurting" phone calls. It was just that...hell, my jaw still hurts.

Jane: What's the matter, baby?
me: Lots of things. And I can't really talk right now. (I was in the kitchen and it seemed everyone followed me.)
Jane: Okay, lets play 21 questions.
me: Okay. Go. Yes or no only please.
Jane: Hmmm....is it J?
me: Nope.
Jane: Is it Rock?
me: Maybe.
Jane: I see. Umm, is it the fact that you are stuck up in the sticks and bored out of your mind?
me: Yes.
Jane: Uh (there was about thirty seconds of her humming uh)
me: You suck at 20 questions.
Jane: (Laughing) 21 questions and just wait...Is it that there is nothing to do?
me: You just asked me that and you really suck at 21 questions. You can't even make it to five.
Jane: I guess you are right. I do suck at 21 questions.

I grabbed my sketch pad from my room and brought it out to the kitchen table. For some reason, I feel I have to chain smoke when I talk to her and I never smoke in the bedroom. (If this was my house, I wouldn't even smoke inside.)

Jane: What are you doing?
me: Finishing a drawing of Bob Seger for my mom. Oh! I put up a new drawing on myspace, too. Its Jesus.
Jane: Whoa! Jesus?
me: Well, Ted Neely as Jesus.
Jane: That guy has spent his whole life pretending to be Jesus. I guess we can be sure that he is going to hell.


She went to myspace and looked at my new art.

Jane: Oooh. Baby...
me: What? Can you tell I wasn't into it or what?
Jane: Yes. I can tell. You need to take it down.
me: Why? People need to see that I do half ass work too. (I laughed. So, I'm not perfect.)
Jane: Its great work, B, but it doesn't live up to the rest of your work. You need to keep this between you and your mom and take it down.
me: Alright. I'll take it down...for your sake.

One thing I can always expect from her is the truth. I knew it wasn't one of my best pieces but, really, I don't care. Its just what I do to fill in the spaces of time where I'm about to go out of my mind.
By this point in the conversation, she has talked with Bob (aka Mary Jane in drag) and she has to tell me about it.

Jane: Can you believe I'm still smoking birthday weed?
me: (Calculating in my head...its been a month since she turned 28) Damn! No. How'd you manage that?
Jane: This stuff is that good.
me: (Laughing) Really?
Jane: Yeah. It only takes two hits and you are good. Three hits of this and you will be stuck on stupid.
me: (Laughing my ass off) Stuck on stupid?
Jane: Hell yeah! Shit, if you tried to smoke an entire joint of this, you would be stuck on stupid for a month.

Stuck on stupid. A few more minutes into the conversation and it sounded like she was borderline stupid. But she kept me laughing. She threatened to come and kidnap me for a week or two. She said she was going to get Freak and Dad D to drive down here, blindfold me, toss me in the trunk, and take me to Asheville. I told her that it didn't sound like my idea of escape. Besides, I'd get claustrophobic, go nuts, and kill the first person I saw when that trunk opened. She said, "Then we better put you in the back seat."

Talking with Bob

I posted a list of all the people I miss yesterday on my myspace blog. A list of friends and of course my family. My cousin (the other family member that is "out" gay) called me as soon as she read the blog. I told her about this blog and she asked to be called Jane.

Out of all the nick names in the world, she picked Jane? Even funnier is that no one calls her by her real name anyway, so I could have just used that nick.

The first words out of her mouth were, "I miss you too."

Talking with Jane is like being stuck in the middle of a comedy festival. I never know what to expect when talking with her and she never fails to get me in a really good mood. Last night was no exception.

Even though she was pretty upset about her snake being sick, she was still great to talk to. (I told her to think that her snake was okay and it would be. Because, thoughts are things after all and if you think it, so be it. The positive thinker in me never fails.)

In our 93 minute conversation, we learned that she is only 161.23 miles from me. A three hour drive. Not bad considering that I used to be 15 hours from her. Then I learned she had been talking to Bob.
I was thinking, who the hell is Bob?
She goes on to tell me that Bob is really Mary Jane. (For the slow ones...its not a person, its a herb.)

me: So Bob is Mary Jane in drag?
Jane: (laughing) Exactly. Only you could think of something like that.
me: Well...why Bob?
Jane: Because its easier to say Bob than it is to say Mary Jane when you've been talking with Bob. And besides, Bob spells Bob backwards.
me: Now, only you would use reasons like that.
Jane: Do you know how hard it is to spell or say Mary Jane backwards?
me: (thinking about it) Its definitely not easy.
Jane: And it sounds fucked up.
me: Yeah it does.

The conversation went into extreme laughter as we butchered Mary Jane and picked on Bob.

Jane: You should try these.
me: What?
Jane: Strawberry milkshake Whoppers. They're like these whoppers that are covered in this yummy strawberry stuff.
me: Yeah, but you've been talking with Bob so anything tastes great right now. I can't eat them anyway. (celiac disease)
Jane: They do taste great. Mmmm, and I'm so sorry you can't have these. They are mmm...
me: Rub it in. You are probably going to eat so many that they are going to make you sick.
Jane: Mmmm...

About twenty minutes later, she told me she had to put them away because they were making her sick. Hey, I warned her. Another person on my list was Freak. She's a young girl that I met about 11 years ago. She plays guitar like you wouldn't believe. Jane informed me that Freak was going to be at her house that night.

Freak and I have very interesting conversations. We talk about the most off the wall things that make sense to no one except us. About 60 minutes into the conversation with Jane, Freak finally showed up.

Freak: Hello?
me: Freak!
Freak: I miss you.
me: I miss you too. I even wrote about how much I missed you at myspace.
Freak: You did? Aww. Thank you. I have to read it.
me: Yeah you do.
Freak: Its such a nice night out.
me: It is. (I'm standing out on the front steps.) Did you see the moon?
Freak: Yes. Isn't it beautiful. I want to fly up there and chase it around.
me: Do you think it will actually run?
Freak: Hmm...I think so.
me: Well, when you catch it, hold it so I can take a bite out of it.
Freak: Ooh yeah. I want to take a bite too. Do you think it would mind?
me: Umm...it might. But if you caught it that means you run faster than it does, so we should have no problem getting away.
Freak: Yeah. Lets do it.

We all talked until Jane's phone died. But then at 2am, the phone rang again.

Jane: I was so worried about calling you back.
me: Why?
Jane: I didn't know who would answer.
me: Luckily I still had the phone in my room. (J's dad was sleeping.)
Jane: I just wanted to call you and tell you that I am cuddled up with Big Bunny.
me: OMG! You still have that thing? (Big Bunny was a gift from an ex that I didn't want to throw away but I didn't want to keep. Its about a three foot stuffed rabbit.)
Jane: Yes. You wanna say hi?
me: Sure! Hi Big Bunny! (I swear we are grown adults.)

She kept threatening to fall asleep on the phone so I made her say goodnight and hang up. But not before...

me: Say goodnight to Bug Bunny for me and give it a hug.
Jane: (she actually said goodnight to the bunny and made noises like she was squeezing its head off.) Done. Goodnight. I love you.
me: Love you too. G'night.

I felt like I needed a talk with Bob after all this.